“It is a win-win situation. Maastricht students can gain a lot of experience and the St. Anne’s Hospital receives structural help, not just from our junior doctors, but also from sponsors whom we want to recruit.” That is the idea behind the recently founded MUSTANGH (Maastricht University Students Twinning a North Ghanaian Hospital) Foundation, so say the two initiators – the newly graduated doctors of medicine Gaël Pennings and Noëmi Nijsten – to Observant in May 2004.
The intention is that every year a number of medical students travel from Maastricht to St. Anne's Hospital in Ghana to do internships. The sponsor money also goes to this hospital – consisting of a number of old barracks on unpaved premises and also the only hospital in West Gonja, a poor and thinly populated province in the north of the African country. It badly needs the help. There are few medical specialists, the facilities are bad, and the equipment is obsolete.
Two decades later, one may conclude that this structural help that the initiators dreamed of, has been achieved. The collaboration between MUSTANGH and the Ghanese hospital is still alive and kicking. The setup has hardly changed, say the present chairperson Sjors van Dinteren and secretary Beau Mingels – part of a board of eight, consisting completely of medical students – in the foundation’s office on Universiteitssingel 50.
Malaria
By now, dozens of Maastricht students have done internships in West Gonja. “Normally, there will be some six to eight every year,” says Van Dinteren. “They stay there for ten weeks. Until a number of years ago, it could sometimes also be for five months, for the so-called scientific work placement, but UM decided that this could no longer be done abroad.”
Working in Ghana provides experience that you cannot get in the Netherlands, Mingels adds. “You are thrown in at the deep end. Our curriculum has practically nothing on tropical medicine. You have to deal with illnesses that you know very little about, such as malaria or snake bites. In addition, patients often show up at a very late stage, because they first try a ritual treatment or have to travel far. You learn how to improvise, be creative: there are fewer facilities at hand than you are used to. At the same time, you have to deal with a lot of road traffic accident victims, cases of dehydration or women in labour. This all happens under very different circumstances, like in a hospital ward without any kind of privacy.”
Wild animals
The ‘service in return’ for MUSTANGH is collecting sponsor money in Maastricht. “Among others things, through activities such as selling ice creams and chocolate bars to students and collecting donations during our annual ‘Tropenblok’ – a series of lectures on tropical medicine for students,” says Van Dinteren. “And earlier this month, we had a benefit gala in the Muziekgieterij in honour of our jubilee.”
Once a year, two board members travel to Ghana to discuss with the hospital board what the money will be spent on. “We focus on their wishes; it would be weird if we were to determine what they need,” says Van Dinteren. Initially, the focus was mainly on new facilities. So, a new children’s ward has been built, the radiology department has been renovated, a medical vehicle (for the transportation of medical equipment and personnel), incubators and an ultrasound machine have been purchased, and a fence has been erected around the property – as protection against, among others, wild animals. The most recent project was the renovation of a building with operating theatres. “Together with money from other foundations, because something like that is very expensive. Our money box for such projects is now empty again.”
Long way
However, new facilities have not been the main objective in recent years. “Now it is about training local hospital employees to become specialists, for example to become theatre assistants, ICU nurses or ophthalmologist. A course of one to two years. There is now a total of eight people who have been trained and another five in training at the moment. After the summer, another two may start. It is rather pricey: for each of them, we pay about 700 to 800 euro on training costs each year.”
The idea behind it is that with a sufficient number of local specialists the hospital can stand on its own feet. Mingels: “If you meet certain conditions, you will receive a different status and with that more government support. That is our final objective: they can then run the place themselves and will no longer need us. Although this is still a long way to go.” In the meantime, there is an additional advantage, says Van Dinteren: “Because there are more and more specialists, professionalism is increasing and there is more knowledge. Maastricht students also benefit from this during their internships.”
Grateful
Will there also be an opportunity for Mingels and Van Dinteren to do an internship in Ghana? So far, the two have only visited the West Gonja District Hospital as board members. “I think an internship there would be great, but it depends on what direction I choose in my master’s,” both of them reply. But, Mingels said, “when I think back on my time there, I would love to get on an aeroplane again tomorrow. The people are extremely grateful and their mentality is very inspiring. In the Netherlands, people are often focussed in particular on their own achievements, in Ghana it is all about the bigger picture. You are immediately included in the community.”
What is certain: both will continue as board members, despite the workload (“an average of ten to twelve hours a week”), for another year. Mingels: “To guarantee continuity, but in fact I also simply like it a little too much."